I have never been so grateful for a sat nav's patience as I was driving from Split Airport to our villa in Seget Vranjica. There I was, Jeremy Clarkson in a Fiat Panda, absolutely certain I knew a shortcut through Trogir's old town. Reader, one does not take shortcuts through Trogir's old town. Not unless one enjoys navigating medieval alleyways barely wide enough for a determined cat. The sat nav kept calmly saying "recalculating" while I performed a twelve-point turn beneath somebody's washing line, a pair of faded Y-fronts flapping inches from my windscreen like a flag of surrender.

By the time we reached the villa, I was ready to abandon the car and walk the rest of my life. But then I spotted our neighbour, Stipe, leaning on a fence with the practiced posture of a man who had witnessed this exact scene approximately four thousand times before. He didn't wave. He simply raised his eyebrows and took a long sip of beer, waiting.

"First time?" he called out, though it clearly wasn't a question.

I admitted defeat with theatrical arms. Stipe chuckled, a sound like gravel in a cement mixer, and wandered over to help with the luggage I was pretending didn't exist. Within minutes I learned he had lived in Seget Vranjica his entire sixty-odd years, that his wife made the best soparnik on the riviera, and that I had parked entirely in his olive tree's personal space. "She is very particular," he said, patting the trunk with genuine affection. "Older than me. Deserves respect."

The property manager, a brisk woman named Davorka with reading glasses perpetually perched on her head, arrived to find Stipe giving me a detailed history of every stone in his garden. She rolled her eyes with the fond exasperation of someone who had collected many guests from Stipe's company over the years. "He tells everyone about the olive tree," she whispered, handing over keys. "Last week he told a German couple it was planted by Napoleon's cousin. It is not."

Stipe overheard and shrugged, utterly unbothered. "Maybe not Napoleon's cousin," he conceded. "But very old. Very important tree."

Davorka walked us through the villa with the efficiency of a woman who had done this ten thousand times but still found small pleasures in each arrival. She paused at the terrace, gesturing towards the sea with what I can only describe as proprietorial pride, as though she had personally arranged the view. "There," she said, "you will watch the ferries. Very relaxing. Better than television." She glanced at Stipe, who had followed us inside without invitation. "He watches from his garden. Pretends he is not watching. He is always watching."

"I am security," Stipe protested, though his grin suggested he rather enjoyed the surveillance.

That evening, having successfully relocated my car to what I hoped was neutral territory, we ventured to the small Konoba Vranjica nearby. The owner, an enormous man called Goran with hands like dinner plates, took our order without writing anything down, then immediately forgot and returned to ask again. "My memory," he announced without embarrassment, "is like the sea. Sometimes calm, sometimes storms." He laughed so hard at his own joke that neighbouring tables joined in, though they couldn't possibly have heard the setup.

By the second beer, Goran had pulled up a chair uninvited and was explaining his philosophy of grilled fish. "The fish," he said, with the gravity of a man discussing nuclear physics, "must be respected. No lemon before cooking. This is violence against fish." He paused, considering. "After cooking, lemon is okay. Fish is dead then. Cannot mind."

I found myself wondering how I had arrived here, in this particular conversation, with this particular giant, in a village I couldn't pronounce properly three days earlier. There's something about travel that strips away your prepared self, leaves you open to whatever peculiar communion strangers offer. I had planned to be sophisticated, perhaps slightly aloof. Instead I was discussing fish mortality with a man whose apron still bore evidence of lunch service, while my neighbour probably observed through binoculars from his olive tree's shadow.

Walking back, slightly wobbly on unfamiliar lanes, we encountered Stipe again. He was walking his dog, a ancient terrier with the demeanour of a retired civil servant. "You ate at Goran's," he observed. Not a question. "He talked too much. Always talking. Good fish though."

I agreed that the fish had been excellent, the talking tolerable.

Stipe nodded, satisfied. "Tomorrow," he said, "I show you proper olive oil. From my tree. Very old. Very important." He paused, catching my eye with something like mischief. "Maybe not Napoleon's cousin. But good oil."

And with that, he shuffled into darkness, dog following with obvious resignation, leaving me on a Croatian lane with the distinct sense that I had accidentally joined something. A community, perhaps. Or at least a very small, very specific conspiracy of people who watched ferries, respected fish, and lied cheerfully about olive trees to anyone who would listen.

I decided I rather liked it.